1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a forked or wishbone boom or spreader gaff for sailboards, having two outwardly bent booms and a tack fitting and an aft or clew fitting, which tack fitting is intended to be mounted to the mast of a sailboard and to which aft or clew fitting is intended to be mounted the clew of a sail spanned between the two booms, which booms serve as manipulating members to control the sail, which booms are interconnected by the tack fitting and by the aft or clew fitting and consist of tubes.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Forked booms of sailboards of the above described construction are commonly known. Recent further developments in the sport of sailboarding have led to the use of sails having individually differing cuts for application together with varying board constructions for specifically varying wind conditions. The length of the commonly known forked booms has a predetermined extent in which the distance between the tack fitting and the aft or clew fitting corresponds roughly to the distance between the luff of the sail and the clew of the sail of a racing sail, having an area of about 6.5 square meters. These forked booms are usually too long when used on jumping boards and also too short for a specific application for sailing in calm weather. Nowadays so-called Maui-sails or High-clew-sails are set for sailing in strong winds and for the utilisation on jumping boards, which sails feature a distinctly shorter distance between the luff and the clew of the sail. The same proves true for storm sails. If such shortened sails are used together specifically with jumping boards and so-called gliding boards the rear end of the forked boom dips into the water when sailing a reach, which obviously in an unacceptable condition. Accordingly, it has been necessary until now to use at least two different forked booms together with the various cuts or shapes of the sails, namely a long boom for racing purposes and a short boom for Maui and storm sails. When sailing with sails cut specifically for sailing in calm weather an elongation of the off-the-shelf available forked booms has been mounted.